In Bethany, as Jesus dines with friends,And Martha sees to it that all are fed,Her sister to the Lord alone attends,Anointing him for coming days of dread.She breaks the jar as love and duty meet;Her worldly wealth she gives no thought to spare.With precious oil she gently bathes his feet;She kisses . . . . Continue Reading »
So Abram said to Lot, “Let’s not have any quarreling between you and me.” Genesis 13:8 We are brothers. May we never fight.Should you wish to occupy the valleyto the left, I’ll turn unto the rightand dwell upon the Negev’s height. So Lot surveyed the Jordan’s fertile plainand . . . . Continue Reading »
“If I knew that tomorrow was the end of the world, I would plant an apple tree today.” —attributed, probably incorrectly, to Martin Luther Whether he really owns the aphorism,or it belongs to someone else instead(perhaps it’s a rabbinic witticism),it sounds like something Luther might . . . . Continue Reading »
In former times it was a simple place,Where one could read without a blushing face,With thickly bound and edifying titles,Like Noble Greeks, and red highlighted Bibles,And Shakespeare (sans Andronicus), and Mark Twain,Whose humor, though defiant, was humane. Today it’s more permissive, and . . . . Continue Reading »
The Five Quintets by micheal o’siadhail baylor, 381 pages, $34.95 Sartre famously wrote that “hell is other people,” but for the poet Micheal O’Siadhail, hell is a highly specific group of other people. Among the damned are Franz Kafka, Karl Marx, and—you guessed it—a certain . . . . Continue Reading »
(To Gabriel) You are much nearer Godthan I, in solitude, withdrawn,can ever hope to be.You are the blood-tinged cloud at dawn,you are the dew my feet have trod.I am the tree. You are the rising sun.Your solemn words are like the heatthat now envelops me.You are a message, incomplete,you are the . . . . Continue Reading »
Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary: Unveiling the Mother of the Messiah by brant pitre image books, 240 pages, $24 In Jesus and the Jewish Roots of Mary, Brant Pitre challenges the oft-heard charge that the Catholic Church’s Marian beliefs are “unbiblical.” He offers a rich . . . . Continue Reading »
Whispers of love were in the springtime airas I lay dreaming of our first full kissbeside the temple wall when he said thiswas happiness and could we ever shareour lives together, find a place somewhere.All I could do was smile, feel my heart missa beat and wipe away a tear. All thisI dreamt about . . . . Continue Reading »
“When the ungodly are green as the grass, and when all the workers of wickedness do flourish, then shall they be destroyed forever; but thou, Lord, art the most highest for evermore.” —Psalm 92:7 “In the morning it is green, and groweth up; but in the evening it is cut down, dried up, . . . . Continue Reading »
The cumuli reach to the noontime moon.Nuthatch and warbler, starling and cowbird,Fall like the famished on seed and suet.Off their heads today, they trill and drone. When I was a young man, how I would curseThe dullness inhabiting this place.Now I hold my breath so it will not break.I have the . . . . Continue Reading »
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